I found out that a good friend of my mother passed away this weekend. Sometimes it feels like I am living in a season of death, so many have gone these last few years.

Each time I lose someone connected to my mother, it feels like little pieces of her are falling away. Soon, I will be left with this incomplete puzzle that only those who knew her could fill in. A once full table slowly emptying, each member fading away with time.

I can not keep all of her memories together, though I scramble to remember each and every story. I remember groaning each time she would begin a tale that I had heard before...now I strain to remember her words, the tone of her voice...

She is drifting away from me before I am ready, all these little pieces...slipping away.